Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Kids of all ages should enjoy the gory details of this recap on the "Iceman" discovered in the Alps in 1991. Basic forensic anthropology is combined with a little archeology, plus an imagined story about the Stone Age man's life prior to his death. Part of the "I Was There" series which also includes The Titanic, the book is an impressive production of photos, illustrations, descriptive sidebars, and text.

Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr

Gr 3-6Photographs and text document the finding of a 5300-year-old mummy in the Italian Alps in 1991. The largest section of the book is a fictional re-creation of the man's last days, illustrated with attractive paintings and sidebars that give information on what is known about life in that period and how the Iceman's remains add to this knowledge. The full-color photographs showing the Iceman are fairly gruesome, but those depicting the artifacts found with him are excellent; the inserts and sidebars add information such as how a glacier is created, what conditions were like long ago, etc. The cover painting of the shriveled body emerging from the ice, with a small photo of the mummy's face, will attract the scary-story crowd; the book also could be used for reports on prehistoric life in Europe. Don Lessem's The Iceman (Crown, 1994) is very similar, even to the re-creation of the Iceman's life and last hours; it has fewer photographs but includes one of a wax model of the man's face. David Getz's Frozen Man (Holt, 1994) has a more sedate appearance, fewer illustrations, and more information.Pam Gosner, formerly at Maplewood Memorial Library, NJ